Speaker subject of April Fools’ Day prank

JACKSON — Rep. George Flaggs, D-Vicksburg, gets the award for having either the best of bravest April Fools’ Day joke.

The state House chamber got real quiet Wednesday morning when Flaggs requested a petition he had filed be read. The petition called for a noon vote on the office of speaker.

Considering the razor-thin margin current Speaker Billy McCoy, D-Rienzi, was elected to the post last year, the petition got the attention of everyone.

But the mood relaxed as the whole of the document was read.

“There shall only be one candidate for the position…none other than the senior gentleman from Warren County, the highly esteemed and most honorable George Flaggs Jr., whose most endearing quality is his sincere humility…In his first act as speaker, he will…declare in a loud voice ‘April Fools.'”

A few minutes later, McCoy had it announced that he was taking applications for a new chairman of the Banking and Financial Services Committee.

Flaggs, by the way, is chair of that committee and one of McCoy’s closest advisers.